'anisaldehyde-oxime' originates from modern scientific English, formed by combining 'anisaldehyde' and 'oxime'. 'anisaldehyde' itself comes from 'anise' (the plant name) + 'aldehyde' (a chemical class name). 'anise' traces to Latin 'anisum' and Greek 'anison'. 'oxime' comes from Neo-Latin/French chemical terminology 'oxime' used in the 19th century.

'anisaldehyde' developed as a compound name by joining 'anise' (Latin 'anisum' < Greek 'anison') with 'aldehyde' (a 19th-century chemical name from Germanic/Neo-Latin usage). 'oxime' entered chemical nomenclature in the 19th century (from French/Neo-Latin forms) and was later combined with systematic substrate names (e.g. 'anisaldehyde-oxime') to denote the oxime derivative of a given aldehyde.

Originally the parts referred separately to the aromatic source ('anise') and the functional groups ('aldehyde', 'oxime'); over time the combined form came to be used as a single systematic name meaning 'the oxime derived from anisaldehyde'.